<p>Op,
I’m very proud of you for navigating the downtown Los Angeles area. This area is very confusing for me even after living in LA for 30 years (such as the 10 fwy is south of DTLA then basically starts up again north of DTLA).
Yes, in the future, the ancillary airports of LA (Burbank, Long Beach, Ontario) are easier to get in and out quickly and easily, but usually, their prices are higher than LAX and they often don’t have direct flights. Hollywood/Los Feliz is pretty close to Burbank. You save like 1 hour being able to check in later and not go thru as much traffic, and you spend 1 extra hour on the connection if not a direct flight.</p>
<p>For this weekend, you could try places that will be cooler, such as the Santa Monica pier or the Getty Museum either the one in West LA or the one in Pacific Palisades. It is 20 degrees cooler by the ocean.</p>
<p>Yes, I flew Southwest (which I thought was obvious because I was flying Burbank to Midway). I don’t qualify for a senior discount yet, but I did appreciate the flexibility of being able to reschedule the flight if need be without a penalty since, I, too, was trying to get stuff done with D2 before returning home, and I didn’t know how it would go. </p>
<p>I drove out to LA from Chicago, starting two weeks ago. Made 2,070 miles in three days! So you can imagine my driver fatigue level. Not surprisingly, the most stressful part of the driving trip started as I approached the San Bernadino Mountains, and until I arrived at D’s apartment in Studio City. Then on Labor Day, we went down to Irvine for a Labor Day party, and I was the DD on the way home. The car has a built in GPS, and I was still a nervous wreck, trying to follow all the different freeway exchanges. And I’m used to driving in Chicago. </p>
<p>lots of q-
You can show off your knowledge of the LA freeways by identifying them as the Southlanders do.
<a href=“Los Angeles Freeway Names”>Los Angeles Freeway Names;
I 10=The ten=The Santa Monica Freeway
I 101=The one-oh-one=The Ventura Freeway
I 110= The one ten=The Pasadena Freeway
The third option will impress since you’ve only been driving a few days.
You MUST say"the"
Start listening to radio rush hour traffic reports and it will start making sense when they call out the alternate routes to avoid accidents or SigAlerts
<a href=“Sig Alert - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sig_Alert</a></p>
<p>Congrats on finding the apt and the furniture store!</p>
<p>I empathize with you about driving around LA. I recall driving son to 2 colleges, and to The Tonight Show. We pulled off freeway; and studied map. It was so frustrating. When I bought a CA car, it had a built-in GPS. </p>
<p>Now you get to do the easy stuff, like dishes, pots/pans, broom, desk, lights.</p>
<p>I always call the freeway by their numbers. In fact, most Angelinos call the fwys by their numbers. We exclude the letter I in front. So it’s called the 405, not the I-405. I don’t know a single person who routinely calls the fwys by their names. Rarely, if someone says the “name” of a fwy, I can usually guess correctly. </p>
<p>Beerme: also 10 Fwy is Santa Monica Fwy west of DTLA and called San Bernadino Fwy east of DTLA.</p>
<p>The most important thing to do when driving is to use google maps with the traffic levels turned on (or the myriad of other apps: sigalert.com etc) so that you can drive around any of the red slow traffic areas, usually caused by an accident or other road hazard. This is for advanced LA driving only.</p>
<p>Teriwtt, can’t you tell by now that nothing west of the Ohio is obvious to me, lol. I just checked Burbank to Pit on southwest. The price would be about the same but the senior citizen rate is sold out until Saturday evening. That is good information to know for the future as it looks like I might be driving S’s car out next month. LAX is a monstrous airport. To show how clueless I am, when I checked Travelocity for all area airports, I thought it made a mistake when it gave me info for Ontario. To us Easterners, Ontario is in Canada.</p>
<p>For today’s adventure, I drove to Kmart which involved no freeway driving and I think only 3 turns. Kmarts in the Pittsburgh area are pretty hit and miss on cleanliness and atmosphere. Since I have no clue about the neighborhoods here, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I figured I could research housewares, etc., while S was in class and if the store didn’t look clean, we would head to Glendale on Sunday and go to Target. Driving to Kmart, I realized that this was definitely a fancier neighborhood than I expected. It was across from Nordstroms and next to a Ross. I am not sure what I passed on the way but there were some beautiful buildings. </p>
<p>Tomorrow morning, we will go to the apartment and take some measurements and make lists of what he needs. He has a workshop between 2 & 4 and hopefully we can go to the furniture store afterward to order so we can have delivery scheduled Tuesday or Wednesday. Although it would be difficult, he could manage to buy the housewares on his own but the furniture delivery almost requires me to stay. I do think the difficult stuff is done but I am realistic enough to know that there still could be problems with the furniture or refrigerator delivery. The saga continues.</p>
<p>Op,
Another fun thing for you to consider is the Hollywood bowl this weekend fri sat and sun. It’s the Simpsons fireworks finale. Tickets available on ticketmaster.</p>
<p>We ended up agreeing to pay higher rent than we originally thought. When he first started looking, he looked for a sharing situation. None of the ones that he contacted worked out. Then he tried for an efficiency/studio but couldn’t find any that came with off-street parking that were in what we perceived was a good neighborhood. My husband is sitting back in Pittsburgh “offering” advice. Off-street parking was a must. As he has gotten older, H tends to worry more, and, since he was willing to pay for it, we went for a nice one bedroom that is .4 mile from the school. It is on a very nice street and is only half a block from the classmates that he has been hanging out with. No, it does not come with a refrig., which seemed strange to me but many of the ads we checked did not include frig. The resident manager said another tenant had one for sale for $125. It looked in better shape than the frig I used at home for 26 years, so I said we would take it. The manager said that it would be delivered to the apartment and I hope that it will. </p>
<p>The place that we plan to get the furniture from is called yourfurniturenow.com. I think we can get most everything that he needs and have it delivered this week, at least that is what the salesgirl at the showroom said. It seemed to be pretty good value furniture, nothing fancy, but a style that he liked. His friends ordered online but I wanted to see it in person. Forty years ago, in another lifetime, I sold furniture for a brief time. I had planned to go to Ikea until we heard about this place. If the furniture can’t be delivered by Tuesday, my backup plan is to buy two air mattresses so we can move out of this motel. </p>
<p>Buy the air mattresses anyway. They can be your son’s “guest room”. Our kid has one and it is mighty handy, and just gets stored in a closet. Very good to,have.</p>
<p>I was thinking that about the air mattress. One of his undergrad friends already asked if he could stay with S when he has a business trip in January. I would not be surprised if more of his college friends or his friends from his semester abroad plan a trip to LA.</p>
<p>I would recommend getting a nice bed. It is always the most important piece of furniture we get. Getting a good night sleep is priceless.
OP - you are doing great. Your son is lucky to have you (and your H).</p>
<p>Haha, had to laugh about your H sitting back in Pittsburgh “offering” advice! Sounds like you have everything under control…parenting never ends!</p>
<p>I’m impressed. You’ve got a lot accomplished. Feel good about it. I know you were nervous about coming out but it was the best decision and I am sure your S is so grateful </p>
<p>Just make sure you also leave extra linens for the air bed! And the right size! I left my son with a twin aerobed and linens…and he tried to use queen sheets when I was there…um…no. </p>
<p>Well done! Apartment hunting here is so stressful. And I agree about having to walk neighborhoods because one block can be fine, the next, not so much. Still, I love this neighborhood. </p>
<p>Yeah, LA is weird in that about half of the apartments have fridges and half do not. </p>
<p>Also, second the suggestion about the Hollywood Bowl tonight or tomorrow. We have tickets for tommorow and hear Conan O’Brien is performing. </p>
Numbers are always acceptable! </p>